Crashing the Net (6 page)

“You okay?”

Mike’s head snapped up. “Sure.”

Alexei wondered if Mike was trying to convince Alexei or himself. Wasn’t working either way. Alexei rounded the couch and stopped a few feet from Mike.

“Look, I usually follow the rule that you shouldn’t say things about other people’s families, but I’m going to make an exception. You always seemed stressed out when you talk to them. Can’t you just…I don’t know, ignore them?”

Mike stared at the wall. “They just want me to be happy.”

Alexei put a hand on his arm and placed himself in Mike’s line of sight. “Seems like they kind of have the opposite effect.”

Mike’s smile was sad. “Yeah. Well, they don’t know I’m—they don’t know me.”

“You’re a good person, Michael. A great hockey player and a hard worker. They should be proud of you.”

Muscles and warm skin flexed against Alexei’s fingers. Mike looked even sadder.

“Thanks,” Mike said quietly.

Alexei realized he was stroking Mike’s arm with his thumb and snatched his hand away. “Only the truth,” he said gruffly, returning his attention to the couch.

“Alexei?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

Alexei picked up his end of the couch experimentally. Jesus, now he remembered why he’d stuck this fucker in a storage unit.

“What’s that?” he managed to grunt, eyeing Mike’s empty hands.

Mike hesitated, then shook his head. “Never mind. It can wait.”

Alexei would have shrugged if he weren’t being crushed under the weight of his poor furniture choices of days past. “Okay. Let me know.”

He groaned as Mike lifted the other end of the couch and soon they were busy bitching about getting the thing through the door, the phone call from home, and whatever Mike had wanted to talk about, forgotten.

They threw themselves into getting Mike settled, jumping on whatever needed to be accomplished next. Once the unloading was done, Alexei unpacked Mike’s kitchen, giving Mike shit about his craptastic grocery store pots and pans. Then it was the bathroom, where he stoutly refused to let his imagination wander when he chucked the large bottle of lube into a drawer. He thought about giving Mike a hard time about it, but the words got stuck in his throat.

Moving right along.

He dove into the boxes of books along the wall of built-in bookcases, trying to make sense of the chaos. Beneath stacks of sci-fi and mysteries, Alexei was delighted to find there actually
were
books on chess, as well as carpentry, plumbing, and tiling. Alexei put them into subject order on the shelves, picturing the ornate tile design Mike had created in the master bath shower.

He looked down at the next stack of books in his hands. They were all about Russia. And Moscow.

He shoved them on the shelf, his sorting system forgotten.

Next!

But the sight of Red Square haunted Alexei for the next hour. Not because he missed it—which he did, on rare occasions—but because even though the books were relatively new, the spines were cracked as though they’d been read all the way through.

Did he buy those because of me?

Alexei vacillated between being annoyed and touched.

Both of which irritated him.

He and Mike were friends. Neighbors now, which was the best and worst idea Alexei had ever had. It had seemed simple enough when they’d first discussed it, but now it felt…
really goddamn intimate
.

If nothing else, it meant he probably should come out to Mike, a task he had put off for far too long. He didn’t think Mike would freak, but people had surprised him before.

For now, though, they only had a few hours left to get Mike unpacked. Whatever they didn’t finish today would have to wait weeks, until the playoffs were over. In the meantime, coming out could wait.

Mike was quiet for the rest of the afternoon, only loosening up once they stopped to have dinner and a beer in Mike’s new kitchen. They had to eat standing up, of course, since Mike didn’t have a table and chairs yet.

“We might have time to go shopping at the storage unit this weekend,” Alexei offered.

Mike shook his head. “No way. You’ve already done enough.”

“Are you really going to argue with me?” Alexei asked, delighted to list all the reasons he was going to win this argument. “You don’t have a table. Or chairs. You won’t have time to shop for weeks.
And
you always put off spending money until practically forced to at gunpoint. Hell, if I don’t get you that table, you’ll still be standing up to eat years from now.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Really?”

“Of course not. I’ll be over at your place, getting you to cook for me. Your chairs are probably more comfortable anyway.”

Alexei took a sip of his beer to hide his smile. Damned if Mike wasn’t right. Alexei’s chairs were better. And he would let Mike come eat anything, anytime he wanted.

On that note, Alexei decided that it was time to go home. It had been a long day, and they had to be at the rink at the crack of dawn.

Mike said goodnight without an argument.

Alexei trudged to his apartment and crawled into bed. It was strange knowing Mike was on the other side of the wall, but rather than keep Alexei awake, he slipped into a deep sleep almost immediately.

Hours later, he woke with a jolt. The silence in his bedroom was absolute.

Then he heard an anguished cry for help.

A loud crash yanked Mike out of his nightmare, his hoarse cries still searing his throat. He bolted upright in his bed.

Oh Jesus. It was just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream.

He scrubbed his hands over his face and tried to slow his pounding heart as reality slid back into focus.

And reality was his bedroom doorknob imbedded in the brand-new wall and Alexei hovering by the bed, silhouetted in the light from the hallway.

Shit.

“What the fuck happened?” Alexei asked, searching the room for some unknown threat.

Shit. Shit. Shit.
“Nothing. Christ, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Wake me? What the fuck? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Bad dream.” Mike turned on the bedside lamp, hoping Alexei didn’t see how his hand shook. He needed to chase the last of the shadows away.

Alexei searched his face. “A nightmare?”

Mike considered making up some shit, but the lie got stuck in his throat.

“Yeah,” he admitted, then realized he was lying after all. “Actually, no.”

“Not a nightmare?”

“It was more of a memory. Kind of a flashback, I guess.”

“A flashback?”

“Yeah. I guess I should have warned you, but I really thought they were gone.”

“This has happened before?”

“I’m sure it’s just the new place and the playoffs fucking with my head. This is the first time I’ve moved since…Well, anyway, it was probably a one-time thing. I’m sorry.”

“
Stop apologizing
.”

“Okay.” What else was he supposed to say? Alexei sounded really pissed, but Mike couldn’t tell if it was about the apologies or having been woken up by him screaming at the top of his lungs.

“What were you remembering?” Alexei asked gently.

Mike shook his head and raked his fingers through this hair, not surprised Alexei had asked but reluctant to reveal the details. Especially since those came with that long-overdue confession.

He held himself rigid when Alexei sat beside him and laid a comforting hand on his thigh, acutely aware that he was only wearing his boxer briefs and Alexei was only in pajama bottoms. He thought he should probably move away, but since most of him wanted to burrow into Alexei’s warmth and stay there, like maybe forever, holding still seemed like a decent compromise.

He couldn’t help but wonder if Alexei wouldn’t touch him like this if he knew the truth. That more than anything made the decision for him.

“Quebec City.”

Alexei stilled beside him, presumably unaware of how hard he was suddenly gripping Mike’s thigh.

“Four guys jumped me. Out of nowhere.” He swallowed against the bile rising in this throat. “It’s not like I haven’t been in a ton of fights, but—it’s different on the ice, you know? I didn’t even call for help at first, just protected my face. My head. Mostly. How stupid is that? I don’t even know how long it lasted. How many times they hit me before it finally clicked that no official was going to step in before it got too bad and I shouted something. Thank god someone scared them off.”

He stopped to catch his breath, having spit most of the story out in a single rush. More than just the beating, not knowing how far they would have taken it had someone not heard him was what haunted Mike the most. He hated that some of the details were still hazy, that he could barely remember their faces, but he couldn’t forget that two of them had been wearing hockey jerseys. That detail had always remained crystal clear.

The hand on his leg tightened, hard enough to leave bruises, but Mike was grateful. It kept him anchored in the present.

“Why would they do that? Were they trying to rob you?”

And here was the rub. “No.”

“For fun?” Alexei asked with disgust.

Mike swallowed again. Hard. “They didn’t like who I was with.”

“I don’t understand. You weren’t alone?”

Mike couldn’t look at Alexei, so he stared at the wall instead. “I’d just left a bar with a man I’d met that night. His name was David,” he recalled, sadly. He’d been handsome. Sweet. The first man Mike had ever flirted with, overtly. With intent. It had been so fucking freeing. Mike had taken the first blows while shoving him away and telling him to run. “We—I kissed him. Right out in the middle of the sidewalk.” God, it had been the bravest and stupidest thing he’d ever done.

Until possibly this moment, right now.

Alexei’s hand slid from Mike’s thigh and Mike’s chest went painfully tight. It was hard to breathe. He told himself he’d survive this, too, no matter what happened.

“You kissed him,” Alexei repeated in a monotone.

Mike looked at his best friend and wished like hell he’d done this some other way. Months ago. But all he had was now. “I’m gay.”

It was the first time in his life he’d said the words out loud.

He thought Alexei would be shocked. Instead he looked…baffled. “Are you sure?”

Mike almost chuckled, but feared it would come out sounding bitter. “Pretty sure.”

“But—”

“I’m sorry,” Mike said quickly, suddenly certain he didn’t want to hear whatever Alexei was about to say. He practically crawled over Alexei to get out of bed but didn’t know where to go once he was standing beside it. What to do. Where to look. He paced in a tight circle and tried to explain. “I should have told you. Of course. I never intended to lie about it, exactly. It’s just—I don’t—it was the one time, really, so it hasn’t really been an issue.” That, he supposed, was one way to describe his complete lack of a sex life. He shook off that thought and tried to stay focused on what Alexei might actually care about. “I should have told you before I moved in. I can go—”

Mike jerked to a halt when Alexei sprang to his feet.

“Shut up.”

Mike’s heart constricting painfully in his chest. “I can move out after the playoffs.”

“
Shut. Up.
”

Mike edged toward the door. “I’ll go now.”

“You will not,” Alexei growled, clamping a hand around Mike’s arm.

Mike pressed his back to the wall, pinned under Alexei’s narrow green gaze. For the first time in months, he wished he was invisible again, even to Alexei.

It broke his fucking heart.

He’d read about coming out, tried to figure out how people did it, but it was still different than he’d expected. Scarier and easier and worse, and not helped at all by the fact he was pretty sure he’d just botched his first attempt fairly spectacularly.

Alexei couldn’t decide if he was going to throttle Mike. Or kiss him.

Oh hell, who the fuck was he kidding?

Cupping the back of Mike’s head in his palm, he dragged his wide-eyed friend closer and pressed his mouth to Mike’s. It was an awful lot like kissing a statue.

It was way too fucking late to wonder if Mike was as certain about his sexuality as he’d claimed to be.
Hello, awkward.

Alexei thought he should probably back away and start apologizing his ass off, but he didn’t fucking want to. Not now that he’d tasted Mike’s lips, felt his warm skin. He relished the feeling of Mike’s full lower lip dragging against his own, greedily inhaling the scent of sleep-warmed skin and soap and sweat.

Months of telling himself he wasn’t going to do this, go here, touch
anything
, made him try, but it didn’t seem to matter. With a last peck to Mike’s still-frozen lips, Alexei sighed, defeated, and eased his grip on Mike’s neck.

Mike’s quiet whimper froze Alexei in place. He hovered close. Unsure.

Then suddenly his arm were full, Mike’s chest slamming into his, their mouths crashing together.

Arousal and elation seared through Alexei, all the way down to his goddamn toes. Mike whimpered again, shoving himself as close to Alexei as he could get, so that Alexei had no choice but to push back, plastering Mike against the wall.

Mike held him closer, tighter, his hands clenched around Alexei’s hips. Alexei dragged his fingers up into Mike’s hair. Mike’s tongue slid over his, their noses bumping as they sought the best angle, took the kiss deeper. Alexei sucked Mike’s tongue into his mouth, reveling in the long, low groan vibrating up from Mike’s chest. Then he let it go to catch Mike’s lip in his teeth and tug.

The needy sound that tore from Mike’s throat make Alexei’s knees weak.

He pulled back and gasped for breath, loving the bright spots of pink high on Mike’s cheekbones, the trembling in his hands on Alexei’s hips.

“
Moi milyy.
”

The words rumbled from him, helplessly fond and possessive and incredibly stupid. The sound of his own voice, the foolish hope packed into those two little words, snapped him out of his half-crazed stupor and plunged him back into cold reality—thirty seconds and one crazy-hot kiss
way
too late.